


best and brightest

by leviathanchronicles



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, i know this concepts probs been done a billion times but this is purely self indulgent please
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22689769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leviathanchronicles/pseuds/leviathanchronicles
Summary: the morality of ambition depends largely on how one defines success.or, the one where percy weasley is a slytherin.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	best and brightest

**Author's Note:**

> y'all ever publish sm solely in hopes that doing so will motivate you to actually work on it more 
> 
> anyways i haven't actually read this series in years so i'm sure some things will be inaccurate...also i actually wrote this whole chapter years ago so i sure hope i remember where i was going with it. anyways percy is good and slytherins aren't inherently bad

When Percy Weasley is eleven years old, he stands in the train station with his family. Bill and Charlie are used to this by now, having gone off to Hogwarts enough times before, and so they run onto the platform with little fanfare. Percy holds himself straight, but his arms are folded over his chest--he’s nervous, about leaving home, but he’s also eleven and hyper-aware of his own maturity.

His mother knows him too well, though, and she smiles at him with warm eyes. He doesn’t even have to voice his fears before she addresses them. “Bill and Charlie will keep an eye on you. Knowing you, though, you’ll end up being headmaster before the year’s end.”

He smiles, one of his tight, close-lipped ones; his teeth are a little bit crooked, and he’s a little bit shy, and so this is typical. “I hope so.”

She starts to speak, but then Ron screams, and then Fred is rolling his eyes, and she’s trying to wrangle the two of them. Percy stands patiently, but when his mum comes back, she just says “I love you,” before pulling him into one of her warm hugs. The spotlight Percy rarely gets is gone, and it shouldn’t upset him, but it does.

Other people are beginning to stare--recently, he’s started to notice how often everyone looks at his family--and his mother’s trying to settle another argument, so Percy just gives everyone a quick wave and breaks into the run he’d watched his brothers do. There’s a chorus of “goodbye!” behind him, and then he nearly lands on Bill, who cuffs him playfully then pulls him along.

And, everyone else’s stares aside, Percy thinks it quite nice to be a Weasley.

* * *

First years get shuffled away pretty quickly after arrival. Bill sends him off with a promise that “you'll be at the Gryffindor table soon, anyways,” and so Percy isn't nervous, even as he sits surrounded by a bunch of strangers.

The Sorting Ceremony isn't what Percy had expected; his brothers hadn't given him any warning, of course they hadn’t, and so he'd figured there'd be an aptitude test or something similar. He was good at those. 

But no, it’s just a hat. He’d be disappointed if he weren’t kind of relieved.

_ Just a hat  _ doesn't keep students from hemming and hawing their way to the front. Percy notices a trend quite quickly--the faster a student gets there, the less surprised they are about their sorting.

Fittingly, Percy is up and moving as soon as he registers his name being called (well, almost as soon--it’d be embarrassing to stand up on behalf of someone with a similar name, and he doesn’t want to be noticed, not because of that). He drops the Hat onto his head without any of the hesitancy he'd seen in other students, and the Hat speaks up soon after. 

_ You’re intelligent, that’s obvious. And ambitious--you want to work at the Ministry of Magic, is that so? _

He sits silently. He wants to  _ be  _ Minister of Magic, but he does his best to keep that detail from working into a conscious hat. Even so, he swears the hat clears its throat before it reiterates,  _ yes, very ambitious indeed. _

Percy is, not for the first time, very aware of how much focus must be on him right now.  _ My brothers are Gryffindors. _ He tries to think it with a certain level of pride, as if he’s just bragging, but mostly, it’s out of fear. The Hat hasn’t said anything about bravery.

_ That says very little about you, though,  _ the Hat points out,  _ very little. There’s a small hint of Gryffindor in here, but--I’m thinking Slytherin. Maybe Ravenclaw. _

Percy stiffens as soon as he hears  _ Slytherin _ ; his next thoughts are frantic.  _ Ravenclaw. Make me Ravenclaw.  _ Ravenclaw isn’t ideal, but it’s better than the alternative--he can call himself a Ravenclaw with pride, or at least without shame.

_ You don’t seem like the type that refuses to stick out. _

And Percy wants to argue, because he hates being the sore thumb, he hates being the  _ weird  _ one, but he can’t even articulate this thought before the Hat goes  _ yes, you’re definitely --  _ “SLYTHERIN!” And Percy waits a few seconds, like the Hat will change its mind, say it was joking, like he’s somehow the first person the Hat has ever sorted incorrectly. 

His arms shake as he lifts the Sorting Hat off. He isn’t greeted with the applause everyone else had received. The students at the Gryffindor table are frozen with their hands apart (aren’t Weasleys always Gryffindors?) and his older brothers are whispering to each other, and he must be the only person in the entire room.

He tries to glance at the Slytherin table without turning his head, without making his disappointment obvious--he need not bother, they look just as displeased by this turn of events--and he wants to grab the Hat again, tell it to change its mind, because it had to have made a mistake. 

It can’t be more than a few seconds before people start to clap--it comes from the direction of the Ravenclaw table, and it’s mostly just ceremonial politeness, but it provides enough sound for Percy to move, ears tugged to his shoulders.

He sits with the Slytherins. No one looks at him.


End file.
